Making sense of economic deprivation as a predictor of suicide and homicide: A nationwide register-study

Abstract

Introduction

Classical work on lethal aggression often viewed suicide and homicide as sharing a common source.

Objective

The present investigation explores the association between measures of social deprivation on the relative incidence of suicide over homicide in Italian provinces.

Methods

Data refer to official government sources on lethal violence rates and measures of social deprivation. The central dependent variable is termed SHR or the suicide rate expressed as a proportion of the sum of the suicide and homicide rates Data were available for the 103 Italian provinces.

Results

The SHR had three significant predictors. The greater the percentage of the population with low education, the lesser the tendency towards suicide. The tendency towards suicide was also predicted by rental housing, the greater the percentage of the population living in rental housing the less the tendency towards suicide. The inverse of the unemployment rate also predicted the SHR. Given that the measure follows an inverse function, the greater the unemployment rate the lesser the tendency towards suicide relative to homicide (SHR). We can interpret the results relative to a homicidal tendency in the SHR: the greater the low education percentage of the population, the greater the homicidal tendency, and the greater the rental housing percentage, the greater the homicidal tendency in the SHR.

Conclusion

The results are consistent with a stream of previous research that connects deprivation with a relatively high probability for disadvantaged populations to direct aggression outwardly in the form of homicide rather than inwardly in the form of suicide.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.